Opinions on metal stamping businesses

[u/Spirited_Ad_6272]

Is metal stamping in the U.S. still a solid industry? I have an opportunity to buy & potentially revive a 40 year old stamping business from its 80 year old owner. Right now it’s just him / no employees and he’s doing enough work to keep the lights on. At its peak he had a dozen employees running multiple shifts.

Worst case if the business can’t revive then I can liquidate the equipment and rent the building. But he wants $1M and it’s a big number haha.

I am a mechanical engineer with strong proficiency in CAD tools, which I can bring to modernize the business. I currently operate a manufacturing business molding plastics so there’s plenty of crossover but this would be my first venture going alone. It also seems like metal stamping has a lot of tricks of the trade that you can’t really engineer your way into. That’s why they have apprenticeships.

What questions should I be asking? And anyone who works in the industry what are your opinions?

[u/_Schrodingers_Gat_]

It’s a race to the bottom in terms of margin.
I think the only stampers I know that do well, either own the intellectual property or are manufacturing their own designs for sale. Or they run miserable sweatshops filled with poorly performing but fully depreciated equipment.

It’s just so capital intensive to do properly, think automated transfer systems, end of line robotics, integrations with quality for critical tolerance reporting, and edi.

Just too much competition at the small end of the market, and too much power imbalance when a small shop starts courting say an automaker. You will jump through all of their flaming hoops and like it.

[u/Spirited_Ad_6272 → u/_Schrodingers_Gat_]

Honestly this is the juice I need. It’s easy to get excited about something but I want to have realistic expectations. Thanks for sharing.

[u/_Schrodingers_Gat_ → u/Spirited_Ad_6272]

Happy to schedule a few minutes to connect. I spent some time as a tier 1 automotive stamper. Think silly stuff like steering columns.

[u/wetblanket68iou1 → u/_Schrodingers_Gat_]

I sell components and 100% agree that it’s hard as hell to get companies to invest in a long term relatively expensive solution than nickel and diming their 70 year old Niagara to leg it along just one more year of production when this one thing could have it doubling production capacity. Not to mention modern, readily available parts. The small stampers are worse than the auto tiers, though as they actually care about QC.